Simple Database Interfaces for Unix?

Siddly asks: "OK, I've used databases in DOS, like dBase2, dBase3 and others. None of those mentioned needing a knowledge of database theory, they allowed you to layout and manipulate data quite easily. In Linux, we have MySQL, Postgres, SQLite, and more. None of these are intuitive, even the GUI's aren't very helpful to any casual or very occasional user, who just wants to create a simple database and forget it until something significant needs to be added, deleted or amended. I obviously don't posses the skills or time to undertake writing such an animal. Does anyone else suffer this frustration? Has anyone managed to get something like dBase3 working under dosemu?" The problem isn't necessarily the underlying RBDMS, but the interface presented to the user. Are there front-ends for the various Unix database offerings that simplify database concepts to the level of what a dBase3 user would feel comfortable with?

Comments

Try this GUI

[FlashBuster3000]

Perhaps you should try DBDesigner which is quite intuitive, easy to handle, etc.
You can export everything, create a webfront in php, etc.
I use it for my database-class..
It's free, it's os independent. what else do you want? :-)

GUIs for MySQL

[Wee]

I've never used dBase3, so I don't know what it's tools looked like, but for MySQL there are a bunch of GUI options.

For a straight-up GUI, he might try MySQL Control Center. It's a Qt-based app, so it'll run on Linux and Windows. It lets you build and run queries, manage the server, etc. Even has a "viewer" for images stored as BLOBs.

There's phpMyAdmin as another option. It's web-based, so the "GUI" should run on anything. It does the same kind of stuff that MySQLCC does: lay out tables, create fields, run queries, etc.

On the admin side of things, the upcoming MySQL Administrator looks like it should be very nice. It lets you drop users, tune the DB, monitor the server, etc.

No matter what he winds up using for a GUI, if he uses MySQL, I couldn't recommend the MySQL Cookbook highly enough. It's an amazingly well-written book and very helpful. Every time I find myself with a "what's the best way to do so-and-so..." question, the answer is never more than 30 seconds of page turning away. It's also good for beginners because it's an easy way to find out how to do particular tasks without having to read an entire manual. It'll let a novice user figure out what query to type into MySQLCC, in other words. And the novice user might eventually find out that all the "database theory stuff" isn't all that difficult to learn.

That's about all I can think of off the top of my head. I'm sure some googling or trolling through freshmeat will yield some GUI apps for PostgreSQL if that's what he's into using.

-B

there are plenty of choices

[ajagci]

Under UNIX, people traditionally use the file system as the database. It's an intuitive, hierarchical database supporting many of the features you expect from databases. You get hierarchical string-based keys and arbitrary binary content (up to many Gigabytes per key). This works best with ReiserFS, but works well enough with the other file systems as well. And everything knows how to access the file system.

The next database system people use a lot is dbm and its variants. They are good for when you need to hold lots of tiny data items and you need high performance. If your data items are big or you don't need high performance, go back to the file system. Dbm is, again, intuitive, simple, and powerful. And it's accessible from lots of different languages.

If you want something close to an RDBMS without using an RDBMS, have a look at Metakit.

Altogether, I think UNIX/Linux developers should mostly stick with using the file system as a database.

SQLite home address

[Futurepower(R)]

I found the SQLite home address on the page you mentioned: SQLite -- An Embeddable SQL Database Engine. I downloaded it and tried the example. SQLite definitely looks like it is an answer. Thanks, that's definitely the kind of database I need. I didn't know about SQLite.

SQL 92 Features That SQLite Does Not Implement. Not many.

Very fancy, and supports every language and its sister:

• A complete database (with multiple tables and indices) is stored in a single disk file.
• ACID (Atomic, Consistent, Isolated, Durable) transactions.
• Database files can be freely shared between machines with different byte orders.
• Supports databases up to 2 terabytes (2^41 bytes) in size.
• Small memory footprint: less than 25K lines of C code.
• Two times faster than PostgreSQL and MySQL for many common operations.
• Very simple C/C++ interface requires the use of only three functions and one opaque structure.
• TCL bindings included. Bindings for many other languages available separately.
• Simple, well-commented source code.
• Automated test suite provides over 90% code coverage.
• Self-contained: no external dependencies.
• Built and tested under Linux and Windows.
• Sources are in the public domain. Use for any purpose.

Is this the answer? Are there any drawbacks? Anyone have experience with SQLite?

Gedafe

[swusr]

Does such a beast exist for Unix/Linux/OS X?

If you're using PostgreSQL, Gedafe is a very nice automatic web frontend generator. Just define your tables, views, constraints, etc. for validation and such, and it takes care of the rest. Give it a try, it's really good.